Pheasant hunting with a bow

[bowzonly]

Hit a chukar square in the thigh with a 6 inch snaro out of a 52# recurve. Spun it 180 degrees. It straightened out and kept going another 80 yards. Luckily I was in a  big open field so we saw where it landed. My dog pointed it again and when it got up again my buddy hit it square in the side with a 3 inch snaro out of a 52 # longbow. It flew another 50 yards. My dog found it again and it still had a lot of life left in it.  Large snaros weigh about 380 grains.  Imagine what that does to the dynamic spine of your arrow. I have slow motion footage of an arrow in flight tipped with one of those things and it is flexing like a circus contortionist. The energy from that arrow is being thrown from side to side and therefore will not be transferred to the bird.

[bowzonly]

To add to my last post, a chukar is about half the size of a pheas.  Owlbait if you consider big success to mean just scraping some feathers off a bird then by all means use the Snaros. Yes, MOST guys struggle with direct hits but nearly every time I go with a group there is a first timer who ends up taking a bird.  Archery pheasant is very challenging, but isnt that why we are using archery equipt and not 12 gauges in the first place.

[instinctivebowman]

when we field tested our frog equipment which are 370-440 grains, they drop dramatically even at 12-15 yards. it doesnt matter when your shooting downward at close range frogs which are typically  5-7' shots(in fact the weight gives them lots of thump and holds the frog in place against the bank)

i think we found around 200-220 gr is somewhat of a majic number for shooting in the air, any design we had heavier just flew too slow. unless your shooting a heavy bow like derrick(65 lb+),  flu flu feathers will decrease your speed too much with my products .If your having speed issues with any product make some feathers that are half flu flu.  I have hit some pheasants so hard it knocked them off line 2' with all kinds of heads and they kept on trucking. they can take a beating. i would rather walk further to pick up my arrow when i miss than to have the arrow fly to slow to kill the bird. take the arrows you plan on using and shoot them in the field to see how far they go. if your arrows are going less than 100 yards total i would think they would be to slow to kill birds effectively outside of 15 yards. adjust the feathers so the arrow goes more like 150 yards or even more. just make sure the field is clear of other hunters

jeremy

[bowzonly]

Not a great quality photo (somthing was wrong with camera) I was most proud of this bird because it was giving us the run around in this big corn field and my dog worked it very well. She circled and pinned it down so I could move in and make the flush. At this point I was experimenting with the Gobbler guilotine. An X shaped broadhead for taking the head and neck off turkeys. It was a crossing shot and I smacked the bird in the thigh. These heads are not designed for penetration so it bounced off. The head was 125 grains with stiff sharp blades and at that range it shattered the thigh.  Bird made it to the woods on my right and I recovered it because it couldnt run and had the fire taken out of it so it wouldnt fly. Glancing blows with this head were devastating But solid hits to the body at any sort of distance resulted in lost birds.

[instinctivebowman]

ive killed a lot of birds with the guilotine and the magnus head too, they are deadly on glancing blows. a sideways knife flying thruogh air is hard to beat. ive bounced right off with direct blows also, sometimes the blunt force of the direct hit still drops them dead, mostly the hens. in my observations, the roosters can take 3x the blow a hen can

[bowzonly]

With that last photo I just took it for granted that folks could tell what was going on so Ill explain just to be sure.  Just to the left of the bird you can see the feathers of my arrow and just above and to the left of that are a bunch of feathers (those black specs)

Well, we went on our hunt today and it was an 0-fer for me. I did get a few grazes and one direct hit (which bounced off and he kept on truckin'). We had one guy shoot a hen out of the air with a field tip. And two more birds shoton the ground with field tips too (they were injured birds and would not get up and fly so after chasing them around a bit one of us finally got a finishing shot on them). I still had a blast and can't wait to go again.

After 3 hunts now the score is Pheasants about 70 and Bisch 2!

See ya later,

Bisch

[1screagle]

Cool, I can't wait!

[oxnam]

Originally posted by Bisch:
one direct hit (which bounced off and he kept on truckin').

What setup were you using and what kind of shot did the pheasant present?  glad you had a great time.

Originally posted by oxnam:
 

Originally posted by Bisch:
one direct hit (which bounced off and he kept on truckin').

What setup were you using and what kind of shot did the pheasant present?  glad you had a great time. [/b]

It was the worst possible......flying straight away.

Bisch

[instinctivebowman]

Originally posted by Bisch:
   

Originally posted by oxnam:
   

Originally posted by Bisch:
one direct hit (which bounced off and he kept on truckin').

What setup were you using and what kind of shot did the pheasant present?  glad you had a great time. [/b]

It was the worst possible......flying straight away.

Bisch [/b]

we had at least 6 hits in the tail flying away today with the spear with only feathers flying, its a tuogh place to shoot them and most of your shots are  flying away. we had fun there were 6 trad gangers hunting together. One pheasant harvested  in the air with a field point. pheasant spear 0. The spear is not good for hitting them in the tail flying away, That area is tuogh and hard to penetrate. Broadheads are the answer for tail shots IMO. The spear needs a head, neck,  or wing shot to be effective. with every hunt im leaning more towards broadheads with the spear behind it. The spear can slide down your shaft about 8-12" when you hit them direct, and the broadhead can penetrate thruogh and the arrow can stay in the bird. This should increase the harvest greatly, especially for tail shots. for glancing blows to the head, neck,or wing the spear can take over that department.
(leashing the dogs once they point is a must with this setup) Derrick  talks about this on his video but i have never tried it. Im going to get some advice from him.
I think some of the guys felt like they didnt shoot that well, but i thuoght overall they shot pretty good based on my experience.

good day, great company

jeremy

[John Krause]

Had a good time Sat at the pheasant hunt. I think one thing we all learned is that you MUST have an arrow on the bow when you come to full draw and release........    It ups your odds tremendously.

[instinctivebowman]

Originally posted by John Krause:
Had a good time Sat at the pheasant hunt. I think one thing we all learned is that you MUST have an arrow on the bow when you come to full draw and release........         It ups your odds tremendously.

lol, i was hoping with all that walking you would have forgotten about that. My arm is bruised from my elbow to my wrist this am.

to learn from my mistake, i came up to shoot at this pheasant really fast,i was staring up at this pheasant with my bow down at my side as i bruoght the bow up i was still looking at the bird, i didnt realize the the arrow was caught and stayed in the grass, i realized it about the time i was realeasing. my string smacked my arm so hard it basically knocked my over.

talk about not seeing the arrow while shooting instincttively!!!!!!

ahhhh memories, anyway the guys got a kick out of it so it was all good and my bow seems unharmed, and my bruises will diminish with time(hopefully)

[DuffyRP]

Great way to spend a Sunday.  A good bunch of guys hunting pheasents with bows and arrows. and some people with just bows.  We had a blast and are looking foward to the fall hunts.  The dogs were great, the pheasents lively and the comic relief was non stop. Thanks for a great hunt Jeremy.

[1screagle]

Sounds like an awesome day!!!

[23feetupandhappy]

A good time was had by all    

Duffy, your shot was cought perfectly on camera